Luxembourg is a parliamentary democracy headed by a constitutional monarch. Under the constitution of 1868, executive power is exercised by the Grand Duke and the cabinet, which consists of several other ministers.[24] The Grand Duke has the power to dissolve the legislature, in which case new elections must be held within three months. However, since 1919, sovereignty has resided with the Nation, exercised by the Grand Duke in accordance with the Constitution and the law.[25]

Legislative power is vested in the Chamber of Deputies, a unicameral legislature of sixty members, who are directly elected to five-year terms from four constituencies. A second body, the Council of State (Conseil d’État), composed of twenty-one ordinary citizens appointed by the Grand Duke, advises the Chamber of Deputies in the drafting of legislation.[26]

The Grand Duchy has three lower tribunals (justices de paix; in Esch-sur-Alzette, the city of Luxembourg, and Diekirch), two district tribunals (Luxembourg and Diekirch) and a Superior Court of Justice (Luxembourg), which includes the Court of Appeal and the Court of Cassation. There is also an Administrative Tribunal and an Administrative Court, as well as a Constitutional Court, all of which are located in the capital.

The contribution Luxembourg makes to its defense and to NATO consists of a small army(currently consisting of around 900 people). As a landlocked country, it has no navy.

Luxembourg also lacks an air force, though the 17 NATO AWACS aeroplanes are for convenience registered as aircraft of Luxembourg.[28] In accordance with a joint agreement with Belgium, both countries have put forth funding for one A400M military cargo plane.[29]

Luxembourg is one of the smallest countries in Europe, and ranked 179th in size of all the194 independent countries of the world; the country is about 2,586 square kilometres (998 sq mi) in size, and measures 82 km (51 mi) long and 57 km (35 mi) wide. It lies between latitudes 49° and 51° N, and longitudes 5° and 7° E.

The northern third of the country is known as the ‘Oesling‘, and forms part of the Ardennes. It is dominated by hills and low mountains, including the Kneiff near Wilwerdange,[30] which is the highest point, at 560 metres (1,837 ft). Other mountains are the ‘Buurgplaaz’ at 559 metres near Huldange and the ‘Napoléonsgaard’ at 554 metres near Rambrouch. The region is sparsely populated, with only one town (Wiltz) with a population of more than four thousand people.

The southern two-thirds of the country is called the “Gutland“, and is more densely populated than the Oesling. It is also more diverse, and can be divided into five geographic sub-regions. The Luxembourg plateau, in south-central Luxembourg, is a large, flat,sandstone formation, and the site of the city of Luxembourg. Little Switzerland, in the east of Luxembourg, has craggy terrain and thick forests. The Moselle valley is the lowest-lying region, running along the southeastern border. The Red Lands, in the far south and southwest, are Luxembourg’s industrial heartland and home to many of Luxembourg’s largest towns.

The border between Luxembourg and Germany is formed by three rivers: the Moselle, the Sauer, and the Our. Other major rivers are the Alzette, the Attert, the Clerve, and the Wiltz. The valleys of the mid-Sauer and Attert form the border between the Gutland and the Oesling.

According to the 2012 Environmental Performance Index, Luxembourg is one of the world’s best performers in environmental protection, ranking 4th out of 132 assessed countries[31]

The industrial sector, which was dominated by steel until the 1960s, has since diversified to include chemicals, rubber, and other products. During the past decades, growth in thefinancial sector has more than compensated for the decline in steel production. Services, especially banking and finance, account for the majority of economic output. Luxembourg is the world’s second largest investment fund centre (after the United States), the most important private banking centre in the eurozone and Europe’s leading centre for reinsurance companies. Moreover, the Luxembourg government has aimed to attract internet start-ups, with Skype and Amazon being two of the many internet companies that have shifted their regional headquarters to Luxembourg.

In April 2009, concern about Luxembourg’s banking secrecy laws, as well as its reputation as a tax haven, led to its being added to a “grey list” of nations with questionable banking arrangements by the G20. In response, the country soon after adopted OECD standards on exchange of information and was subsequently added into the category of “jurisdictions that have substantially implemented the internationally agreed tax standard”.[39][40] In March 2010, the Sunday Telegraph reported that most of Kim Jong-Il’s $4bn in secret accounts is in Luxembourg banks.[41]Amazon.co.uk also benefits from Luxembourg tax loopholes by channeling substantial UK revenues as reported by The Guardian in April 2012.[42] Luxembourg ranked third on the Tax Justice Network‘s 2011 Financial Secrecy Index of the world’s major tax havens, scoring only slightly behind the Cayman Islands.[43] In 2013, Luxembourg is ranked as the 2nd safest tax haven in the world, behind Switzerland.

Luxembourg has especially close trade and financial ties to Belgium and the Netherlands (see Benelux), and as a member of the EU it enjoys the advantages of the open European market.

With $147 billion (April 2013), the country ranks eleventh in the world in holdings of U.S. Treasury securities.[44] The ranking is however imperfect as some foreign owners entrust the safekeeping of their securities to institutions that are neither in the United States nor in the owner’s country of residence.[45]

Luxembourg has efficient road, rail and air transport facilities and services. The road network has been significantly modernised in recent years with 147 km (91 mi) of motorways connecting the capital to adjacent countries. The advent of the high-speed TGVlink to Paris has led to renovation of the city’s railway station while a new passenger terminal at Luxembourg Airport has opened some years ago. There are plans to introducetrams in the capital and light-rail lines in adjacent areas within the next few years.

The telecommunications industry in Luxembourg is liberalised and the electronic communications networks are significantly developed. Competition between the different operators is guaranteed by the legislative framework Paquet Telecom[47] of the Government of 2011 which transposes the European Telecom Directives into Luxembourgean law. This encourages the investment in networks and services. The regulator ILR – Institut Luxembourgeois de Régulation[48] ensures the compliance to these legal rules

Luxembourg has modern and widely deployed optical fiber and cable networks throughout the country. In 2010, the Luxembourg Government launched its National strategy for very high-speed networks with the aim to become a global leader in terms of very high-speed broadband by achieving full 1 Gbit/s coverage of the country by 2020.[49] In 2011, Luxembourg had an NGA coverage of 75%.[50] In April 2013, Luxembourg featured the 6th highest download speed worldwide and the 2nd highest in Europe: 32,46 Mbit/s.[51] The country’s location in Central Europe, stable economy and low taxes favour the telecommunication industry.[52][53][54]

Luxembourg is connected to all major European Internet Exchanges (AMS-IX Amsterdam,[59]DE-CIX Frankfurt,[60] LINX London),[61] datacenters and POPs through redundant optical networks.[62][63][64][65][66] In addition, the country is connected to the virtual meetme room services (vmmr)[67] of the international data hub operator Ancotel.[68] This enables Luxembourg to interconnect with all major telecommunication operators[69] and data carriers worldwide. The interconnection points are in Frankfurt, London, New York and Hong Kong.[70]

Several providers interconnect Luxembourg to the major European data hubs:

Luxembourg is connected through an optical DWDM network, called Teralink[81] to several Tier 1 upstream providers like Level3 and Global Crossing. Teralink offers connectivities up to 100 Gbit/s. P&TLuxembourg established a coherent 100Gbit/s IP connection between Frankfurt and Luxembourg with live traffic in 2011.[82][83][84][85]

The Internet IPV6 protocol has been introduced to the country by Restena and P&T Luxembourg.[86]

LU-CIX is Luxembourg’s neutral and commercial Internet Exchange Point which was founded in 2009 by Cegecom, Datacentre Luxembourg, Global Media Systems, INEXIO, LuxConnect, P&T Luxemboug and Root eSolutions. It offers a short, fast and efficient route to the major European Internet networks.[87][88] In 2012, LIX, the neutral Internet exchange operated by the RESTENA Foundation, merged with LU-CIX.[89] In March 2013, LU-CIX launched the ‘Central European Peering Hub’ in order to provide the opportunity to its members to connect to other IXs’ reseller programs, AMS-IX (Amsterdam), LINX (London), DE-CIX (Frankfurt) and France-IX (Paris), etc.[90]

LIX is the Luxembourg Ethernet Exchange located in the Tier IV certified eBRC datacentre.[91]

The online portal De Guichet[92] of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is a single one-stop online shop for citizens and companies to undertake various administrative operations (procedures, online forms, downloadable forms and advice) by Internet.[93]

Some 20 data centres[96][97][98] are operating in Luxembourg. Three data centers are Tier IV classified & certified: two of ebrc [99] and one of European Data Hub.[100] In a survey on 9 international data centers carried out in December 2012 and January 2013 and measuring availability (up-time) and performance (delay by which the data from the requested website was received), the top 3 positions were held by Luxembourg data centers.[101][102]

Three languages are recognised as official in Luxembourg: French, German, andLuxembourgish, a Franconian language of the Moselle region that is also spoken in neighbouring parts of Belgium, France and Germany. Though Luxembourgish is part of the West Central German group of High German languages, more than 5,000 words in the language are of French origin.[106][107] The first printed sentences in Luxembourgish appeared in a weekly journal, the ‘Luxemburger Wochenblatt’, in the second edition of 14 April 1821.

Apart from being one of the three official languages, Luxembourgish is also considered the national language of the Grand Duchy; it is the mother tongue or “language of the heart” for nearly all Luxembourgers.[108]

Each of the three languages is used as the primary language in certain spheres. Luxembourgish is the language that Luxembourgers generally use to speak to each other, but it is not often used as the written language. Since the 1980s, an increasing number of novels have however been written in Luxembourgish. Most official (written) business is carried out in French. German is usually the first language taught in school and is the language of much of the media and of thechurch.[109]

Luxembourg’s education system is trilingual: the first years of primary school are in Luxembourgish, before changing to German, while in secondary school, the language of instruction changes to French.[110] Proficiency in all three languages is required for graduation from secondary school, but half the students leave school without a certified qualification, with the children of immigrants being particularly disadvantaged.[111]

In addition to the three official languages, English is taught in the compulsory schooling and much of the population of Luxembourg can speak English, especially in Luxembourg City. Portuguese, the language of the largest immigrantcommunity, is also spoken by large parts of the population, but by relatively few from outside their community.[112]

French is the preferred language of the government. Official legislation must be conducted in French.

According to a 2005 Eurobarometer poll,[117] 44% of Luxembourg citizens responded that “they believe there is a God“, whereas 28% answered that “they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force” and 22% that “they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, god, or life force”.

Luxembourg sells the most alcohol in Europe per capita.[118] However, the large proportion of alcohol purchased by customers from neighbouring countries contributes to the statistically high level of alcohol sales per capita; this level of alcohol sales is thus not representative of the actual alcohol consumption of the Luxembourg population.[119]

Luxembourg was the first city to be named European Capital of Culture twice. The first time was in 1995. In 2007, the European Capital of Culture[121] was to be a cross-border area consisting of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the Rheinland-Pfalz and Saarland in Germany, the Walloon Region and the German-speaking part of Belgium, and the Lorraine area in France. The event was an attempt to promote mobility and the exchange of ideas, crossing borders in all areas, physical, psychological, artistic and emotional.

Luxembourg was represented at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China, from 1 May to 31 October 2010 with its own pavilion.[122][123] The pavilion was based on the transliteration of the word Luxembourg into Chinese, “Lu Sen Bao”, which means “Forest and Fortress”. It represented Luxembourg as the “Green Heart in Europe”.[124]

Unlike in most countries in Europe, sport in Luxembourg is not concentrated upon a particular national sport, but encompasses a number of sports, both team and individual. Despite the lack of a central sporting focus, over 100,000 people in Luxembourg, which has a total population of only 512,353, are licensed members of one sports federation or another.[125] The largest sports venue in the country is d’Coque, an indoor arena and Olympic swimming pool in Kirchberg, north-eastern Luxembourg City, which has a capacity of 8,300. The arena is used for basketball, handball, gymnastics, and volleyball, including the final of the 2007 Women’s European Volleyball Championship. The largest, and national, stadium is the Stade Josy Barthel, in western Luxembourg City; named after the country’s only official Olympic gold medallist, the stadium has a capacity of 8,054.

Luxembourg cuisine reflects its position on the border between the Latin and Germanic worlds, being heavily influenced by the cuisines of neighboring France and Germany. More recently, it has been enriched by its many Italian and Portugueseimmigrants.

Most native Luxembourg dishes, consumed as the traditional daily fare, share roots in the country’s peasantry, as inGermany, in marked contrast to the more sophisticated[citation needed]French.

The main languages of media in Luxembourg are French and German. The newspaper with the largest circulation is the German-language daily Luxemburger Wort.[126] In addition there are both English and Portuguese radio and national print publications but accurate audience figures are difficult to gauge since the national media survey by ILRES [127] is conducted in French.

Luxembourg is known in Europe for its radio and television stations (Radio Luxembourg and RTL Group). It is also the uplink home of SES, carrier of major European satellite services for Germany and Britain.

Due to a 1988 law that established a special tax scheme for audiovisual investment, the film and co-production in Luxembourg has grown steadily.[128] There are some 30 registered production companies in Luxembourg.[129]

My other blog: Justice for Jacqueline and Janessa Greig

September 9th was the fifth anniversary of the San Bruno gas pipeline explosion that killed (murdered) CPUC Gas Ratepayer Advocate Mrs. Jacqueline (Jackie) Greig and her thirteen year old daughter, Janessa. Mrs. Greig was the head of her department and was in charge of approving a 3.6 billion dollar rate increase proposal submitted by PG&E […]

Alan Wang (KGO Reporter) SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — PG&E is waiting to get hit with criminal charges. The federal government is expected to go after the utility for that pipeline disaster in San Bruno more than three years ago. The gas explosion was always a crime in the eyes of Gayle Masuno whose 87-year old […]

Well, I just finished the story about attending the Subcommittee meeting and I must say, it wasn’t easy. It was difficult for several reasons but most of them had to do with me being new to blogging, especially this particular template that you see here. Even though both of my blogs are on WordPress (which […]